Lebanon News

Jul. 04, 2017 | 12:17 AM

New mountain of garbage looms over Sidon

Garbage is dumped near the Household Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Center, a waste-processing plant, operated by the company IBC in Sinniq, on the outskirts of Sidon, Friday, May 19, 2017. (The Daily Star/Mohammed Zaatari)

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By the time IBC and the Sidon Municipality accepted waste from Beirut, it was clear that rejected material would be a problem.

However, accepting part of Beirut's municipal waste almost doubled the facility's intake.

According to the information, the facility built between 2009 and 2011 was only designed to treat 99,000 tons per year, which corresponds to slightly over 271 tons per day.

During a phone call following the interview in Ghazieh, Zantout responded to this by saying the facility had been subsequently "modified". However, he did not specify how it was made possible to process double the amount of waste the facility was designed to handle.

Abdel-Jawad said the Sidon Municipality was contracted to receive $6 million over two years for managing Beirut's waste, while IBC is receiving a fee of $95 per ton, which adds up to $19,000 per day for an average of 200 tons.

Saudi denied that any waste was being thrown into the sea and said the trash coming from Beirut was only organic, thanks to sorting by the Al-Jihad Group for Commerce and Contracting.

However, he admitted that rejected material was causing a problem for the city and estimated the excess quantity currently at the IBC facility was 16,000 tons.